The BBC has ordered a new series about iconic writer Arthur Conan Doyle as well as a Conan Doyle-themed ghost story from Mark Gatiss. 
 

BBC Arts commission Killing Sherlock: Lucy Worsley on the Case of Conan Doyle is made by BBC Studios and sees historian Lucy Worsley investigate the love-hate relationship between Conan Doyle and his most famous creation, Sherlock Holmes: the author came to hate his fictional character. 
 

The series examines the pair in a parallel biographical form, intertwining historical context with personal history. The producers are Rachel Jardine and Laura Blount, the series producer is Linda Sands and the executive producer is Amanda Lyon. 
 

Worsley said: “I have had a LIFE-LONG CRUSH on Sherlock Holmes, so it was the biggest pleasure imaginable to explore his life, death and resurrection. 
 

“While exploring his life and times, I also got a real and sometimes troubling insight into manliness, Empire and Victorian values. I find his creator, Arthur Conan Doyle, to be a complex, contradictory and endlessly fascinating character.”
 

To accompany the series, Sherlock co-creator Mark Gatiss has adapted Conan Doyle’s short story Lot No. 249 starring Kit Harington and Freddie Fox.
 

In keeping with his tradition of writing and directing a ghost story for Christmas, this is first time Gatiss has adapted a Conan Doyle horror story for television. The story revolves around a group of Oxford students, one of whom undertakes research into the secrets of Ancient Egypt which become the talk of the college.
 

Writer/director Gatiss remarked “It’s a serious delight for me to delve once again into the brilliant work of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, this time for the Christmas Ghost story.

‘Lot No.249’ is a personal favourite and is the grand-daddy (or should that be Mummy?) of a particular kind of end of Empire chiller: a ripping yarn packed with ghastly scares and who-knows-what lurking in the Victorian closet…”
 

Lot No. 249, a ghost story for Christmas (1×30’) is produced by Isibéal Ballance for Adorable Media and will air on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer this Christmas. 

Lucy Worsley image via BBC Studios.